Healthy Homemade Slushies {Green in 365: Summer}

 

This is Day 176 of the Green in 365 series!

Growing up, nothing said summer like an ICEE from 7-11.  We’d ride our bikes down and get a cup full of dye and corn syrup.  Well, I don’t know about you, but that is something I am not willing to have be a part of my kids’ summer experience.

I still want them to have a fun and full summer with our own traditions. So this summer we will be finding all sorts of other frozen treats!

One I love is slushies.  Sure you could do popcicles, but I always find they freeze a bit funny and there ends up being some frozen chunk of ice at the bottom and then a sugary part at the top.  YUCK!

So we simply use an ice cream maker with some cold, cold drink and let it go for about 15 minutes.  You then get a nice frozen soft drink you can eat with a spoon without hacking away at it.

Making Healthy Homemade Slushies

The best part of this is all of the different options you can use for the drink!

Here are some ideas:

• Straight juice

• 1/2 Juice & 1/2 water kefir

• Juice with a splash of milk kefir or cultured yogurt or sour cream for a “creamcicle”

• Punch – 1 part pineapple juice, 1 part grape juice, 2 parts apple juice, 2 parts cherry juice.  Then you can add the same amount of water or water kefir.  My kids LOVE this one!

You can also use any summer fruits for slushies in the blender.  Cut up melons and freeze them, then run them through the blender.  Sometimes if they aren’t sweet enough for the kiddos I add a little bit of raw honey. (Emily’s note: I just made a delicious strawberry watermelon slushie for my kids last week, look for that recipe coming soon!)

Of course you could also do Probiotic Smoothie Popcicles, Frozen Pineapple Treats or just ice cold water kefir.

Enjoy staying cool this summer without opening a plastic-wrapped straw each day to cool off!

What do you do with your kiddos to beat the summer heat?

Find all the Green in 365 posts.

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